Five Steps to Clean Up the Mess and Lead with Purpose
You’ve seen management waste in action – when poor leadership results in wasted time, opportunities, and lives. Maybe you’re the leader who is struggling to clean up the mess in your organization.
Most leaders embrace a top-down, view of leadership, in which the leaders dictate demands to their subordinates, and the focus is the benefit of the leader rather than the organization. We’ve seen how this model plays out in major corporate scandals!
Since retiring from my corporate career, I’ve devoted myself to helping leaders learn and implement a new style of leadership – servant leadership. Drawn directly from Jesus’ example to us in Scripture, these five steps can help you CLEAN up the mess and lead with purpose.
C – Commitment
The first characteristic of a servant leader is commitment. This means you are committed to helping others grow as people, not just in their business skills, but also in their faith. For me, this meant committing to be present in the small things by taking an interest in my employees’ daily lives and tasks. Remember, your commitment as a leader is first to serve God, and second to serve your family, employees and organization. Your commitment should never be to yourself and your own best interests.
L – Listening
A lot of “top-down” style leaders see themselves as the main character in their story. They only think about themselves, and rarely ask the opinion of their team. I call it CEO Disease. The Bible tells us a wise servant leader listens to the wise counsel of others. In my career, I spent a lot of time listening to my frontline coworkers about what would make their jobs easier and more efficient, what caused them the most frustration in their jobs, and how we could serve our customers better. They knew a lot more about what changes the company needed than I could figure out sitting in my corporate office. A good servant leader is humble enough to actively seek and listen to the advice of others.
E – Empathy
A servant leader demonstrates empathy toward their employees by being aware of what is going on in others’ lives and acting with kindness and compassion toward them. This means you have a genuine concern for them and their wellbeing. You don’t see them as cogs in a wheel that are there to serve you and help you progress in your own career, but rather you view them the way God does: as an individual of immense worth and value. Demonstrating empathy creates a culture of support and trust, ultimately producing a team that performs at the top of their game. A team that truly cares about each other is a team that wants to be there, contribute, support each other, and win together!
A – Accountability
As a leader, you are accountable to a number of people – shareholders, employees, customers, and most importantly, God. Many leaders isolate themselves so they don’t have to bear the burden of accountability, but it is paramount for servant leaders to allow others to speak truth into our lives. This is why I encourage all servant leaders to have a mentor or an accountability partner who can point out your blind spots, allowing you to grow and become a better Christ-follower and leader.
N – Noticing
Noticing involves looking beyond your selfish ambitions to those around you. It is putting a higher value on others than yourself. It’s taking the time to know what is going on in your co-workers’ lives and actively praying for and engaging with them. I tried to spend time every day speaking with my team members around the office and out in our operations around the world, and would even take notes so I could keep track of what everyone had going on, and how I could help them progress in their careers. That way, I could drop by my receptionist’s desk to ask how her son’s soccer game was or go pray with a colleague on the accounting staff when his mom was having surgery, or follow-up with others’ supervisors to develop a plan to move them up in their careers.
The CLEAN model of servant leadership will give you simple steps to make a huge difference in your leadership, your organization, and in the lives of others. I cover these topics in more detail in my book Management Waste: Five Steps to Clean Up the Mess and Lead with Purpose, which is available at Amazon in print, E-book, and Audiobook. My calling is to help leaders lead more like Jesus, and all proceeds from the sale of the book go to charity!